Despite a fine, slick single "Hangin'",
on their sixth studio album CHIC was beginning to sound alarmingly tired
and uninspired. It was clear that the commercial deroute was draining Nile'n
Nard's enthusiasm just as personal tensions were growing among the CHIC-members.
"I Feel Your Love Coming On"
was a dry-sounding electronic track that also featured Bernard on lead.
The chorus, although over-repeated, isn't bad but the spark is missing -
in Germany the song was issued as a second single - in the US they didn't
any longer bother. It has been criticized that the new CHIC-sound of the
80s relegated CHIC's better singers, Alfa and Luci, to the background. They
did, however, come to glory on the album's best track "When
You Love Someone", a soaring ballad that turns into a funky second
part that nearly succeeds in bringing back that special CHIC magic. A new
self-mythologizing song "Chic
(Everybody Say)", although bringing back the CHIC strings, fails
to ignite anything. Alfa's "Hey
Fool" is plesant but is so sparsely arranged that you could be
forgiven to believe it was a demo-version. The next song, the only 2:40
"Sharing Love" was
an obvious rehash of "Soup For
One", but nowhere as good as the latter. The closing track of this
remarkably short album (only 32 minutes), "City
Lights", sounded like a left-over from the "Take It Off"
album but at least breaths a little life into this lackluster album that
is really a disappointment in CHIC's catalogue.